Week 2: Early Days of the
Cold War
Yalta, Tehran and Dividing up Europe and
Asia
The Great Depression increased
tension between European powers
Britain and France were weakened
by economic problems
● Public attitude against militarism and war.
● Military Spending declines in the 1930s.
Fear of communism leads to ascent
of fascist leaders.
Hitler in
Germany
Salazar in
Portugal
Mussolini
in Italy
Franco in
Spain
Stalin consolidates power in the
USSR through brutality
The Great Purge
Holodomor: A
manufactured
famine in Ukraine.
Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin’s ideologies
demanded territorial expansion.
● Stalin to extend communism
● Mussolini to recapture Italian glory from
Roman past.
○ Colonial expansion with invasion of Ethiopia
● Hitler to recapture territory lost in WW1.
○ Instrumentally to gain access to oil and cheap labor.
War begins with German invasion of
Poland in 1939
Part of secret clause of GermanSoviet non-aggression pact
By 1941, Hitler captured most of
continental Europe
In June 1941, Germany invaded the
USSR
The invasion was devastating
● Massive losses for Red Army in Belarus and
Ukraine in summer of 1941.
● Germans fail to capture Moscow, Leningrad
and Stalingrad.
● Red Army repels German troops from
Stalingrad in 1943.
○ Lift siege of Leningrad in 1944.
Soviets form Grand Alliance with UK
and US
● Churchill, FDR and Stalin meet in Tehran in
1943.
● Meeting begins to shape post-WWII world.
● Stalin demands invasion of France in 1944.
● Allies make other concessions.
○ Eastern Poland annexed to USSR.
○ Support for communist partisans in Yugoslavia.
Allies invade France in 1944, Soviets
retake territory
● German Army on the brink of collapse by
early 1945.
Stalin, FDR and Churchill meet in
Yalta in 1945
Yalta Conference Goals
● Plan for post-war world.
● Each leader has different goals:
● Churchill?
● Stalin?
● FDR?
Yalta Conference Goals
● Churchill
○ British survival
○ Contrary to Gaddis, preservation of empire.
Yalta Conference Goals
● Churchill
○ British survival
○ Contrary to Gaddis, preservation of empire.
● Stalin
○ Cripple Germany
○ Expand sphere of influence.
Yalta Conference Goals
● Churchill
○ British survival
○ Contrary to Gaddis, preservation of empire.
● Stalin
○ Cripple Germany
○ Expand sphere of influence.
● FDR
○ Institution for collective peace
○ Global financial stability
Yalta Agreements
● Free elections in Soviet-occupied Poland.
● Stalin commits to UN, promises to enter war
on Japan 3 months after Hitler surrenders.
● Germany to be dismembered into at least six
separate countries.
Germany surrenders in May of 1945
Allies meet in Potsdam in July 1945
Changes in Cast of Characters:
Stalin extracts favorable concessions
● Conversion of Germany into pastoral/lightindustrial economy.
● Reparations to the Soviets.
● Eastern Poland formally integrated into
USSR.
● Stalin to invade Manchuria in August
Germany to be divided into four
occupation zones
US tests A-bomb in July. Drops two
on Japan
Stalin makes more territorial
demands in Northeast Asia.
● Territory from Turkey, access to straits to
Mediterranean.
○ US and UK reject the demand.
● Continued occupation of Northern Iran
through 1946.
○ US and UK file grievance in Security Council.
○ Stalin withdraws.
By 1946...
● Grand Alliance is deteriorating.
● Increased tensions between US and USSR.
● US threatened by territorial demands.
● USSR threatened by atom bomb.
On Thursday...
Escalation and Tension